Future plans

Hi.
I am a big fan of Webassist's extensions. I am a little concerned about the progress you are making. Been along time since I read any news from you. The only things that keep me confident in you is that I see some movement in the forum and that you keep updating the compatibility with new DW versions. So with all the good intentions, and since I am a very loyal customer of yours, I would like to ask.
Are you active in the sense of new products? Working on any new projects? What about Data Bridge with MySqli? Since my backend systems rely a lot on Webassist's extensions I am beginning to wonder if one day I wake up and read something like 'Thank you for all these years it was a wonderful journey etc'. Just want to know if you are about to leave us just like Interakt did some years before or if you have any plans for future product releases (which is what I really hope and believe). Best regards.

We are working on an update for DataBridge to support MySQLi. All of the updates for Dreamweaver versions that have been sprung on us have delayed that process. We are a smaller company now, with Dreamweaver losing focus on the server side technology that we concentrate on, but we won't be going anywhere any time soon.

I think you got the best server side products. Really I have tried many. With your products someone can create virtually any custom CMS 80% faster than handcoding. Even if DW is not so focused on server side anymore, I find this as a great oportunity for you to fill this gap. I can't wait for MySqli DataBridge version to be realeased.
Best Regards

Ray, I still appreciate your great support in this forum and the quality of the extensions.

But the great delay of implementing new features and the unknown, when we will finally see them, makes it more and more difficult to trust on WA products. The wish-list has been implemented about two years ago and we, as customers, still don't know what will be implemented. Or will you just move the current functions to MySQLi and won't implement new ones?

It would be good to know more in detail what we can expect in the next months. Thanks for your understanding and your still great support.

p.s. Where is Jason Byrnes?

The next Data Bridge release will focus on re-implementing all of the existing Data Bridge functionality in MySQLi and making it easier to update existing pages to MySQLi and updating form builder to produce more responsive forms.

Once that is done we will review the feature suggestions to see what else we might be able to add, but certainly MySQLi and responsive design are the primary focus.

Thx for your reply Ray.

Jason has left. :-( I miss him too.

Jason is a very knowledgeable person and helped me on several occasions - I wish him well.

BTW. What did happen to Jason? I've noticed that Ray is very busy on here, and I have always appreciated his help too. Just wondering where Jason went? I was hoping they had only taken him off the forums to focus elsewhere for a while. Guess not. If this has been answered somewhere already, I missed it.

I agree with what Nico is saying. I love Webassist's products and have been here for many years.
But we got use to the excitement of those emails announcing updates, upgrades and new extensions. It was a motivation shot in the arm just when we needed it. Now, it's very quiet.

The delay in releasing the DB MySQLi update is understandable, since Adobe keeps throwing curve balls. Obviously WA wants it done just as much as we do, but the lines of communication on the subject need to be reopened at this point.
After telling us it would be the first quarter of this year.
http://www.webassist.com/forums/post/183250/
http://www.webassist.com/forums/post/183451/

And then later saying it was planned for the end of the first quarter.
http://www.webassist.com/forums/post/186593/

I feel they regret doing that and quit talking about it all together. We just keeping thinking, "maybe today is the day we will see the email that MySQLi has been added to DataBridge".
So we come here hoping there will be any word on the subject, but there never is. Not unless someone asks.

One last thing that I think would help pump some fresh air into the forums, is to clean out the old Sticky's. Someone needs to spend time freshening up the forum's Sticky's. Some of them are announcing dot releases or known issues as far back as 2010. eCart's for example has announcements for eCart 4 and 5 dot releases but nothing for the latest dot release. And I don't even get an email notifying me when an update is released. The last one I got was a year ago. So without the emails and with the outdated Sticky's, the only way I know there is an update is if I login and go look.

Having said all that, I am sure that once DataBridge is updated, it will be great.

Hi there Webassist. Any news yet? Maybe tell us where are you at regarding DataBridge MySqli upgrade? Sooo much time has passed that I begin to worry. Should I still be developing using Webassist products? It does not really make any sense. You have one of the most successful products for custom web development. Even without an update for so long, you still have the most reliable products. It would really help all of us to explain what are you planning. Even if you plan to make an upgrade in 5 years from now, or even if you don't plan to make any upgrade and only keep the support, it would be 100% better to know that, than to leave us in complete dark. I am writing with all the good intentions. I keep on building new things using your products (ecart & mysqli), but I think it would be fair to explain to us what are you planning to do, since we have clients too and we want to be sure that we are providing them solutions that are based on solid products and not in products that are just fading out. A big hug to Webassist. Help us understand what is going on so we can help you too.